Snowslide
by mochawhip
Summary: Green would have prodded his rival for some well-deserved praise on his incredible prediction skills, if he had the foresight to avoid the mountain on that fateful day, or if he had abandoned his lengthy mission to convince Red to return to sea level. The Pikachu and the clothes on his back were all he had left after the snow fell.


**SNOWSLIDE**

* * *

Green told Red an avalanche was bound to happen.

He would have prodded his rival for some well-deserved praise on his incredible prediction skills, if he had the foresight to avoid the mountain on that fateful day - if he had abandoned his lengthy mission to convince Red to finally leave the peak behind and return to a more stable sea level.

He knew that suspicious, far-off gaze in Red's eyes when the snow first shifted, and the telltale twitch in Pikachu's ears. Green was busy gulping down what little air there was, hoping it would take away any remaining oxygen and suffocate the idiot next to him in the process. The rat's cheeks sparked threateningly when he got too close, but Green ignored all the warning signs to make room to complain instead.

"This might shock you, Red, but most people in the real world don't find asphyxiation-by-mountain the most thrilling thing to-"

All Green could think of next was how the avalanche couldn't even wait for him to finish his sentence.

* * *

Enjoying a little sarcasm now and then didn't mean he didn't listen when necessary. The dangers of Mount Silver were real and no one got past the entrance gates without a thorough lecture on what to do in the rare instance that absolutely everything went to frozen hell. He vaguely remembered seeing Red jump the opposite way with a hand on Charizard's pokeball before the snowy current swept him aside, bare arms breaking through for just a second until the rest of the snowfall followed. The force hit Green like a Dizzy Punch and the little air left in his lungs escaped in a frosty, fragile puff.

The cold snapped his mind back into gear and he shoved his arms through the cascading snow. Bitter crystals slipped up his sleeves and melted down his neck. His fingers itched to push past the snow and reach for his pokeball belt, but it took all his effort just to keep his head above the surface, gasping for any oxygen he hadn't already consumed.

The snowfall caught up to him anyway.

* * *

Snow wasn't supposed to be _hard_ and hurt _this_ much. If Red wanted to go down with this hunk of rock, so be it, and Green had given up on trying to figure out why.

Giving up was apparently on his record now, too. A pile of what was essentially fluttery ice crystals had no excuse to be this heavy on his back, and no amount of squirming or cursing budged it.

Green ceased his movements with a slow sigh. He thought he remembered the Plateau's guards talking about the chances of survival after being buried like this - ten minutes? An hour? No, he'd freeze by then. Extra precautions like ropes or beacons seemed silly when Red managed perfectly fine without either out here. Green listened, honestly, or at least more than he did as a kid. Obviously he was going through close-to-death reflections, thinking on how he hadn't grown up as much as he tried to convince himself.

Thankfully a powerful electric bolt zapped him out of any more sappy self analysis and melted his snowy cavern away.

"Pika pi!"

After his torturous scream echoed throughout the mountain range, Green then reflected if death by avalanche would have been the better option.

* * *

It was no secret that he and the rat never got past a level more tolerable than _mortal enemies_. Surely the creature wasn't even a Pikachu, and was actually some mutant experiment in disguise with the sole purpose to make Green's life miserable. It explained a lot.

The only upside to being electrocuted was that the snow had fried up in Green's hair and clothes, and prompted a rush of heat in his body by a shocked heartbeat and unadulterated rage for his woeful situation. His pack was gone, likely buried somewhere down the slope, and his pokeball belt had slipped off entirely (loosely fitted, which was stupid for dangerous mountain climbing but highly fashionable in Viridian right now, and Green _always_ aimed to be a trendsetter). A Pikachu and the clothes on his back were all he had to make it back up to the peak, where Red was or was not waiting, likely without a scratch on his body.

If he was up there, Green was going to chuck him off the cliff himself.

He shook his head until the electric currents seemed to dissipate from his bones. Pikachu stared back on his hind legs, as though expecting something more.

"If you think I'm going to thank you," Green said when he was sure his teeth stopped chattering, "you can kiss my-"

It was the second time that day Green was unable to finish his sentence.

* * *

Having been zapped again, Green was more than ready to start hiking back up and work on whatever it would take to forget this day ever happened. Alakazam surely could pick at his mind and turn this entire event into bright yellow sunshine and a day on Cinnabar's beach surrounded by his fans - a tempting solution, though Green knew better than to pretend he didn't see what was in plain sight. Gramps deserved better than that attitude by now. Even Red deserved better. (Raticate deserved it too late.)

"What?" he barked at the chatty rat bouncing around next to him. He tested a clump of slushy snow before sinking his boot into it. The entire ground was broken into slop; he'd already slipped three times trying to get up this hill. Everything was shaken into thick dust around him and nothing stayed in place.

"Chu! Pika _chu!_" He couldn't understand Pikachu at all, nowhere near as much as his own team. All great Trainers bound with their Pokemon in a way that bridged communication barriers, where a simple hand gesture or inquiring squeak was all that was needed to say something. Green mastered this well with his own team, but other Pokemon remained a mystery as he focused all his efforts on only his own comrades. The mouse waved his stocky arms and pointed to the opposite side when his chirping seemed to get nowhere. The snow there looked just as unstable as the rest around them, but Green's energy to argue had cooled considerably.

"Fine." He kicked back the drying slush and followed Pikachu's trail. "Just don't lead me into a pit."

* * *

The disappearance of paths meant they wouldn't make it to the top by nightfall. Pikachu knew this mountain as well as his Trainer, and it took him no time at all to find a cave just before the sun set. Green dropped on the floor and rubbed over his aching stomach. Daisy always worried over his hikes along Cinnabar's volcano, like it was going to blow again when Green was playing hooky from his Gym there. At least volcanoes could be predicted and steady in the new earth they created and destroyed; studying the vulnerability of snowpack merely reminded him how easy it was to bury everything on the surface without changing much underneath. Very few times in his life had Green felt so helplessly unprepared. (When he left Lavender for the first time with an empty slot on his belt, when he lost his Champion title, when he ran away in hopes of finding what to do with himself next, to be precise).

Pikachu appeared in front of him again with a bundle of sticks and frosted berries in his arms. Apparently he'd been busy while Green was doing his best loser impression.

"It's scary how well you guys know this place," he commented dryly. Pikachu huffed through his nose and dropped the bundles, cheeks glowing but lacking irritated sparks. Even he was at his limit, Green realized, just so they could both make it this far, just because without the two of them, Red really would drift off forever.

Green picked up two sticks and a handful of small rocks, rubbing them together experimentally.

"But thanks for the three-course dinner. Think I can start us a fire?"

His hands were nearly rubbed raw by the time a little spark caught onto the kindling, but Pikachu clapped for him anyway. They split the berries into mediocre human and Pokemon sized portions, then fell onto the cave's cold ground to sleep. Green only woke once when Pikachu rolled over in the middle of the night against his chest; naturally the dumb rat wasn't shivering as much as Green was, but it helped when Green draped the side of his coat over Pikachu and pulled him close.

* * *

He woke with the dawn's sunlight beaming right into his bloodshot eyes and a fresh collection of berries near the remains of the fire. God forbid anyone saw how beat up he looked before locking himself in his apartment and showering for the next two days. Red was going to get a _stern_ talking to, and if this wasn't enough to convince him that living up here was literally the stupidest real estate plan one could conjure up, Green wasn't sure what would.

Yesterday made it easy to pin the blame on Red; now Green just wanted to find him and his Pokemon. He was willing to settle for that - as tempting as socking Red in the face was.

Pikachu was standing guard at the cave entrance, eying a distant wild Golbat. Green stumbled out and stretched his arms until half his back gave a satisfying pop.

"Chu?"

"Yeah, I'm ready."

Green turned and immediately slipped on the snow, realizing in the middle of his tumble that he understood what the mouse said.

* * *

He almost didn't believe it when a grand Pidgeot soared over their heads and cried out a tune he knew far too well. He nearly fell again when Pikachu leaped on top of his head ("I'm not Red, get off of there!") and waved his arms with an ecstatic cry in response. Green's Pidgeot swept down to land, blasting dry snow away with his wings.

"Oh man," Green breathed, wrapping his arms around the bird's neck and hiding his undoubtedly-loopy smile in the feathers. "I dunno how this isn't the worst day in my life. Get us out of here, will ya?"

With one arm around Pidgeot and the other around Pikachu, they kicked off into the thin atmosphere. The avalanche's rumbling trails had froze and settled, leaving the peak clear as day with Red waiting in the center. It was beautifully peaceful up here, Green had to admit, when the threat of death by ridiculously heavy fluff was dormant.

"Green." The pokeball belt and Pidgeot's ball were in Red's hands when they landed. The fact that he was able to communicate with his rival's own Pokemon well enough to do a quick rescue search nagged in the back of Green's mind. "Are you hurt?"

"Starved and a human icicle, but yeah, peachy." Green loosened his grip on Pikachu, who immediately jumped towards his Trainer's face with a relieved squeal. Green dismounted Pidgeot and held out his hand.

"I'm sorry-"

"Thanks for finding them. I don't want to know _how_, but thanks."

Red opened his mouth but quickly shut it and handed over the pokeballs when Green ground his teeth together in a frigid smile. Green's version of trying to be nice was a mixture of comical and painful-looking.

"So," Green said, once his belt was properly secured like it was supposed to be, "I think I've had my fill of this place for the next thousand years, so smell-"

"I think I have, too."

_Three times_ in the past twenty four hours. Green dragged a dirty hand down his face. What did it take to let a guy finish his sentence around here?

"Wait, what?"

Pikachu patted Red's cheek, looking as lost as Green. Red scratched the back of his Pokemon's head comfortingly and closed his eyes. It was the same expression his friend used when he wanted to say something critical, so Green mustered all his effort to give his undivided attention.

"Maybe it's time to go back," Red muttered.

"After - after I nearly _died? That's_ what it took? You're so..." Green fell back into the snow with a heavy plop. Surely the entire world was laughing at his tragic life. "I'm so done. Just roll me off to the side and get it over with. And you're so not staying at my place."

A week later at his place, Green carefully laid a blanket over the sleeping Pikachu taking over half his couch, and silently placed a bowl of fresh berries on the coffee table.


End file.
